Deus Ex Machina

"It's fuckin' cold. Goddamn, why did you have me meet you out here at this hour? Do you have any idea how fuckin' cold it is?"
I couldn't tell if the white cloud that exited his mouth was from his breath or his cigarette anymore, but the thought, much like the white cloud, flared out into the night never to be seen again.
"No, I'm sorry, I really didn't have any idea, for you see I have been inside, all day, with the heater going and the stove on; I have purposefully incubated myself for the past twelve hours within a veritable oven with the sole goal of making you suffer in this horrible tundra for my amusement."
Truth be told, I had told him to arrive at the parking lot of the Denny's down the street from my apartment an hour earlier than when I intended to get there, not only that, but I also told him to wait outside his car. It was his own fault, though. If he hadn't arrived late, or fallen asleep in his car last time, then maybe such precautions wouldn't have been necessary.
And yes, I did get some amusement out of it, but I would keep that to myself.
"Asshole."
I scoffed at his insult.
Inside there were two three tops that I could see. One of the three tops I recognized, the normal neighborhood drunks that stumbled in late at night to grease up their intestines in a vain attempt to help them sober up so as to avoid the inevitable fight that was waiting for them at home with the respective ball and chains. Poor, naive fools; how had it never occurred to them that, maybe, just maybe, what bothered their wives wasn't so much the fact that they walked into the house reeking of liquor and cheap perfume, but that they did it at 3 AM?
Well, I suppose there's never a good time to reek of cheap perfume, but that's a different fight.
The cashier was leaning against her counter, much as she had been doing the past three nights, aimlessly flipping through her Cosmo.
One server was all that was needed for these late Wednesday nights/early Thursday mornings, and with the drunk table having recently been topped off, he would be having his 02:30 cigarette break whilst going over lines for the next audition he wouldn't get. Poor bastard, he's so bad, and you can pine about how things sound so much worse from inside a dumpster, but he could have been reciting those lines from the stage of Sanger Hall with me sitting in the audience and I would have still smelled rotting cheese. You can't teach talent.
"So, everything is alright, yeah? We're gonna be okay, I mean? Last time we tried this it went fuckin' south quick, and I ain't just talkin' bout that mess with the dog, neither."
I lit the cigarette he handed me. My watch read 02:40. Ten more minutes before Hamlet came in. Fifteen if he was feeling particularly dedicated this evening.
"You're just lucky I had that sausage with me."
"Hey, yeah, I've been meanin' to ask just why in the hell you that fuckin' thing."
There were a lot of things that I did, a lot of things that I had on my person at any given moment that were inexplicable. Even I didn't know why things turned out the way they did for me sometimes. Shit just happens, you know? At least, that's what the Grey Egg had come to teach me.
The unknown group of three all filed out, shook hands, and departed in their respective vehicles. The drunks remained, and the cashier continued pretending she knew how to read. I think I would just about blow her mind if I were to tell her that Cosmo was short for Cosmopolitan. "Well holy hell, whad'ya know bout that? Casmapalitan." She'd say. "I didn't even know that was a word. What's it mean?"
02:55.
Hamlet enter stage left.
Every protagonist needs an antagonist, one that compliments him well, evenly matched, with just enough of a flaw that the hero can hook and unravel him.
Unluckily for Hamlet, I was no such villain.
Hell, who was to say that I was a villain at all? Maybe I was just the hero that was sent to rid the world of shitty actors and their illiterate henchmen.
Never fear, World, I am here to save you once again.